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The younger brother of DJ Khaled’s soon-to-be wife was shot dead at an apartment in the Bronx on Sunday night (February 4), according to the New York Daily News.

Jonathan Tuck — the 25-year-old younger brother of Khaled’s fiancée, Nicole Tuck — was reportedly trying to purchase marijuana when he was shot in the face at around 9:15 p.m. local time. Tuck’s family refutes this report, with sources telling TMZ that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The police believe Tuck had an argument with his attacker before the shooting. TMZ’s sources claim there was an attempted robbery and Tuck was shot while trying to defend himself. A 34-year-old man has been taken into custody, though no one has yet to be officially charged.

Tuck, who had a two-year-old daughter, died at St. Barnabas Hospital. Nicole Tuck and her mother reportedly rushed to the Bronx after learning of the shooting.

Brandon Davis, Tuck’s close friend and godfather to his daughter, said his family deserves to know what happened before his death.

“He’s a good guy,” Davis told the New York Daily News. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was no reason for him to be there … I just want to know what this was about. His mother deserves that. His father, his sister, his daughter deserves that. I hope they find the answer.”

Khaled, who was in Minneapolis for Super Bowl LII on Sunday, and his wife issued the following statement to TMZ:

“Our family appreciates the condolences from loved ones and friends … we are requesting privacy during this difficult time.”

Migos and its follow-up to 2017’s Culture — the aptly titled Culture II — has dominated the Billboard 200 chart for the week ending February 1. Following closely behind is Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic, which saw a huge boost in sales after the Honolulu-born pop/R&B singer walked away with six Grammy Awards last Sunday (January 28).

Elsewhere on the chart, Rhymesayers MC Evidence and his new project Weather Or Not makes its modest debut on the chart at #187, and Eminem’s Revival drops to #16.

Migos released its highly anticipated album Culture II last Friday (January 26) and the project has entered the Billboard 200 chart at #1. Boasting 199,467 total album equivalent units sold (38,486 in pure sales and a streaming count of 224,593,278), the 24-song project marks the Atlanta trio’s second #1 debut.

The original Culture debuted at #1 in 2017 with 131,193 equivalent album sales and was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2018 Grammy Awards.

Offset, Takeoff and Quavo recently announced they’ll be the musical guests on the March 3 episode of Saturday Night Live where they will join host Charles Barkley.

Note: The first number below is this week’s “total album equivalent units” count, an intersection of album sales, single sales, and streams implemented by Billboard’s new rating system. A pure album sales figure is available in bold in parenthesis and information about each album’s streaming count is available in brackets.

Meek Mill’s case has become increasingly complicated since he was sentenced to two to four years in prison last November for probation violations. Meek’s legal team has accused Judge Genece Brinkley, who has overseen Meek’s case for the past nine years, of having a personal vendetta against the Philly rapper.

“We look forward to a lawsuit from the judge and taking this to court where she will have to be deposed under oath and speak the truth,” Tacopina said in a statement to HipHopDX. “We are not shocked that Judge Brinkley has resorted to this tactic. She has filed 29 lawsuits, including lawsuits against the Hershey Estate and the Hershey Entertainment Resorts Company in Philadelphia Municipal Court, settled for $15,000 and claimed ‘trauma,’ ‘sleeplessness,’ ‘flashbacks,’ and ‘nightmares’ that she blamed on the hotel, where she had stayed for a 2012 judicial conference.

“Brinkley claimed that her emotional distress was triggered when she woke up in the middle of the night to find a housekeeper’s name badge in her bed,” he continued. “She also had sued The City of Philadelphia and tenants where she has tried to take advantage by using her title as a judge to intimidate them.”

But Peruto Jr. told the Philadelphia Inquirer he believes they have a “solid” defamation case.

“What you have is an organization — extremely wealthy — who wants to attack a sitting judge,” he said. “It’s ‘How much money can you throw at a case and make your allegations stick?’ Her reputation has been severely damaged within the last month. We absolutely believe she has an absolute solid case.”

Tacopina and fellow attorney Jordan Siev aren’t backing down. They are adamant they have enough evidence showcasing a pattern of Brinkley urging Meek to leave his Roc Nation management in favor of former manager Charlie Mack.

Earlier this week, Brinkley released transcripts that showed Meek’s probation officer — not Brinkley — was pushing Meek to go back to Mack. Meek’s legal team begs to differ and provided transcripts of their own showing Brinkley has been suggesting Mack since as far back as 2012.

“We won’t be intimidated, especially by a lawyer who visited Meek Mill days after he was sentenced and also called his defense team to try to get hired and offer him his legal services on this matter,” Tacopina says. “Additionally, he has changed his tune regarding his comments about paying $100,000 if the FBI concludes the judge did something wrong – his earlier comments to Law.com were that he would pay five years of his salary if the FBI ever investigated the judge. I guess he is withdrawing that bet now.”

Despite Tacopina and the rest of Meek’s legal team’s allegations against Brinkley, Peruto is confident she’s innocent of any wrongdoing.

“If there’s an FBI investigation against Genece Brinkley that concludes she did something wrong, I’ll pay them $100,000 out of my own money,” he said.

T-Pain keeps it real … really real. Throughout the years, the multi-talented Tallahassee native has been open about his struggles with alcohol, growing up poor (which is where the “Pain” in T-Pain comes from) and problems with his family life.

After getting a handle on his love of Hennessy, and making things right at home with his wife of 15 years and three children, the godfather of Auto-Tune returned in November with Oblivion, his first solo album since 2011’s Revolver.

“For one, I wanted to get out of my label — that was the quickest way,” T-Pain tells HipHopDX. “Two, it was time to release something. It was time to get back on it and I hadn’t been. Early in my career, I wasn’t really paying attention to my family or my kids or my wife. I took some time off to really get it together, be a better husband, father and stuff like that. Like, fuck these other people that don’t care if I live or die. After a while, it was time to come back. I really just got my shit together at home, so I was ready to go back out.”

As he explained in a 2017 interview with The Breakfast Club, drinking became a way to cope. Despite his celebrity status and money, he realized his lifestyle wasn’t working for him. Drinking led to depression and eventually, the isolation started to eat him up.

“Most famous people are the loneliest people in the world,” he says, “That just how it goes. That’s everybody. People are always trying different vices. You can’t just go meet people like everybody else. You can’t just go out dancing and just go to hookah bars out here or anything like that. You need people you can actually have a conversation with and somebody you know actually likes having a conversation with you, and they not just talking to you because they can get something out of you.

“We can’t go to Target for some reason,” he continues. “I don’t know why we’re not allowed to go to Target. They’re always like, ‘Are you broke? You’re at Target,’ and I’m like, ‘You’re here too! Are you broke?’ [laughs]. People always ask me, ‘What are you doing in here? What are you doing in Home Depot?’ This is where rich people buy hammers at, that’s why I’m in a Home Depot. Show me the rich people hammer store and I’ll go there I guess.”

T-Pain’s rise to notoriety began in 2004 after Akon discovered T-Pain’s group at the time, Nappy Headz, had done a cover of his track “Locked Up.” Akon signed him to his Konvict Muzik label and it was on from there. His 2007 sophomore album, Epiphany, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, and spawned hits like “Bartender” featuring Akon and “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’).”

During that “T-Pain era,” which went on throughout the mid to late-2000s, he picked up some hard lessons and admits “things got fucking stupid.”

“People are fake, so you got to know when their being who they are or they just trying to please you so they can get money out of you,” he says. “You never know. We could easily avoid it by just saying, ‘fuck everybody’ but even the people you’re closest to, the people you know, or the people you grow up with, they turn into fucking weirdos. You never can avoid it but I’m a very trusting person, so I kind of let the wrong people into my camp and things got fucking stupid.”

Although Cash Money reportedly still owes him $500,000 for unpaid royalties, T-Pain is in a good place and has a solid perspective on the industry he’s been a part of for so long. Last December, he explained why Post Malone made the right choice to put 21 Savage on “Rockstar” even though T-Pain was originally on the track.

“People feel like artists always want to be in the forefront,” he says. “That’s bitterness to me. I don’t fucking care if I do something like this. There are plenty of songs that I hear and I’m like, ‘Aw shit. I could’ve came up with that. I was thinking about that the other day. That’s a subject that I could’ve wrote something about.’ But I’m not like, ‘Ah I could’ve been on the song’ and ‘that could’ve been me. I don’t know why they put that new dude on there. I’ve been running this ship for a long time.’ No, I don’t do that. That’s dumb. I just want people to win.”

Meek Mill may still be behind bars but his hometown of Philadelphia has not turned its back on the rapper. As the Philadelphia Eagles have done most of the season, Meek’s “Dreams and Nightmares (Intro)” will be a big part of the team’s Super Bowl routine.

According to defensive end Brandon Graham, the team has chosen to use “Dreams and Nightmares” for the introduction when the team is announced on Sunday (Feb. 4) in Minneapolis, NFL.com reports. “If you’re going to go with a Philly song that’s the one you’re going with,” he said.

The rapper also received love from defensive end Derek Barnett, who said, “Meek, you know, he’s locked up right now, so we have to hold the city down for him.” Barnett added about the song, “It just gets us going. It gives us good energy. Just a little extra juice.”

Last week, the Philly rapper released a statement, highlighting how proud he is of the team for making it to the Super Bowl. “I’m so proud of my Eagles for making the Super Bowl and representing the city of Philadelphia,” Meek wrote.

“It really lifted my spirit to hear the team rally around my songs and that’s why I make music—to inspire others and bring people together. But the Eagles have also motivated me with the way they’ve overcome tough situations and injuries to succeed this year,” he continued. “That’s why I’m confident my guys are going to beat the Patriots and bring the Super Bowl trophy to Philly.”

The rapper is currently serving a two-to-four-year sentence for a parole violation stemming from two prior arrests. The sentencing was a controversial one, as prosecutors recommended no jail time for Meek.

Neo-soul goddess Erykah Badu recently sat down with Vulture for a rare interview, where she had some colorful opinions on everything from mumble rap and Kendrick Lamar to empathy and cognitive-dissonance reality. At one point, the Baduizm visionary even defends Adolph Hitler, you know — that guy responsible for the Holocaust.

When asked about a 2008 trip to Palestine, where she was reportedly criticized for seemingly defending Louis Farrrakhan and not defending Anti-Semitism, she used that argument that she “sees the good in everybody.”

“I’m not Muslim, I’m not Christian, I’m not anything; I’m an observer who can see good things and bad things,” Badu said. “If you say something good about someone, people think it means that you’ve chosen a side. But I don’t choose sides. I see all sides simultaneously. I’m also okay with anything I had to say about Louis Farrakhan. But I’m not an anti-Semitic person. I don’t even know what anti-Semitic was before I was called it. I’m a humanist. I see good in everybody. I saw something good in Hitler.

“Hitler was a wonderful painter,” she added.

Badu was given the chance to clarify and while she did denounce Hitler’s talent as a painter, she doubled down and blamed his childhood for the way he turned out.

“Okay, he was a terrible painter,” she said. “Poor thing. He had a terrible childhood. That means that when I’m looking at my daughter, Mars, I could imagine her being in someone else’s home and being treated so poorly, and what that could spawn. I see things like that. I guess it’s just the Pisces in me.”

Earlier in the conversation, she was asked her thoughts on XXXTENTACION, who is embroiled in legal trouble, and whether we should separate the artist from the music. She curved the question with, “I would never suggest that I have the popular opinion on this. Because I don’t.”

The Dallas native then recalled a random parable her grandmother told her before she explained, “I don’t want to get scared into not thinking for myself. I weigh everything … I would have to really think about it and know the facts in each of those situations before I made a judgment. Because I love Bill Cosby, and I love what he’s done for the world. But if he’s sick, why would I be angry with him?

“The people who got hurt, I feel so bad for them. I want them to feel better, too,” she continued. “But sick people do evil things; hurt people hurt people. I know I could be crucified for saying that, because I’m supposed to be on the purple team or the green team. I’m not trying to rebel against what everybody’s saying, but maybe I want to measure it.”

Later in the interview, Badu opens up about feeling out of place as a kid, the idea she takes rappers she dates to the “sunken place” (she has three children — one with Outkast legend André 3000, one with Jay Electronica and one with D.O.C.) and her definition of “Baduizm.”

New York, NY – Fat Joe was a recent guest on Ebro’s Beats 1 Radio show, where he opened up about his thoughts on the newer generation of rappers. In particular, he talked about Lil Uzi Vert, who he refers to as a “bad version of Lil Wayne.”

“You hear all these little kids now who doing Hip Hop music,” he tells Ebro. “Those is all Lil Wayne’s flows. Every last one. Lil Uzi is a bad version of Lil Wayne. It’s not as good as Lil Wayne. Just to be honest with you. And he’s good and I like his songs.”

He adds, “Lil Uzi, I got nothing but love for you. He ain’t as good as Lil Wayne. That’s impossible. Lil Wayne was considered — he’s one of the greatest. He’s a G.O.A.T. Not only that, he was lyrically considered the best rapper on earth for a couple of years. Lil Uzi Vert ain’t going to get that. It’s with no disrespect because I like Lil Uzi Vert and I like a lot of his records. I cannot front. I actually bought his album.”

Ebro replies, “It’s a good album. Yo, the album’s really good,” to which Joe says, “It’s a good album. It’s a good album. I don’t want to take it disrespectful in no way, but Lil Wayne is Lil Wayne. That’s different.”

From there, Ebro goes on to tease the Terror Squad/D.I.T.C. vet about “shitting” on Lil Uzi, but Joe insists, “I didn’t shit on Lil Uzi. I can’t say how much I appreciate him. I’m just saying Lil Wayne inspired generations of music.”

Elsewhere in the episode, which also features Dre of the production duo Cool & Dre, Joe discusses his new single “Pick It Up,” the Grammy Awards, Cardi B’s success and his previous release, “So Excited.”

The full episode airs on Wednesday (January 24) at 4 p.m. EST on Beats 1.

It may have taken Meek Mill going to prison to finally squash his beef with Drake. During a show in Melbourne, Australia, Drizzy moved past his much-publicized beef with Meek with a message of support for his incarcerated rival.

“I see you got the ‘Free Meek Mill’ T-shirt,” he told an audience member. “Free Meek Mill too. You right.”

Meek has received an outpouring of support from fellow Hip Hop artists after he was sentenced to two to four years in prison for violating his probation. JAY-Z is arguably the most prominent critic of Meek’s sentencing, penning an op-ed about it for the New York Times.

The alleged actions of the judge presiding over Meek’s case have only made the criticism louder. Vic Mensa recently joined the growing list of critics in a recent interview with HipHopDX.

“The powers that be want Meek Mill to be a slave of the state. Point blank, period,” Mensa told DX. “Let’s not forget that a fat cat in a tall building gets paid off of every inmate. In many ways, they’re still privatized prisons all across this country. There’s prison labor being used to produce everything from Starbucks cups to pencils. And slave laborers, you know what I’m saying? And they want Meek Mill as a ward of the state.”

Meek Mill was moved into general population at a new prison after the Philly rapper requested he be taken out of solitary confinement, according to TMZ. A State Correctional Institution official who works at the Chester, Pennsylvania facility reportedly said Meek was out of Camp Hill and at their prison in his own cell.

Earlier this week, Meek had demanded to be removed from solitary confinement for fear it would wreak havoc on his mental state. His attorneys reportedly said prison officials were concerned about Meek’s interactions with other inmates considering his celebrity status.

With general population comes more privileges. The Wins & Losses rapper is now able to play basketball, jog, read at the on-site library, exercise in the yard and clock in some gym time. He will also have to choose a job, either cleaning cells or cooking, which only pays 19 cents an hour.

Countless fans and fellow artists alike have come out in support of Meek, including JAY-Z who recently penned an op-ed for the New York Times in Meek’s defense. A “Free Meek Mill” rally was held in Philly on Monday (November 13) and the flyer was shared by everyone from T.I. and Black Thought to Metro Boomin and Swizz Beatz.

Lawyers are currently fighting to get Meek’s two to four-year sentence thrown out. On Wednesday (November 15), TMZ reported Meek’s attorney filed court documents to get him released and request that his probation be terminated.

After news broke that Meek Mill was sentenced to two to four years behind bars, it didn’t take long for people to stir up an uproar. The reasoning behind his sentence was unjust and the judge responsible for the sentencing reportedly had it out for Meek in the first place. Despite all of this, his lawyer was not going to let Meek go to jail without a fight.

Meek has officially filed to be released from prison, TMZ reports. In addition to his release, he’s also demanding to have his probation completely terminated. They say the documents were filed earlier this morning in PA and it reportedly cites Judge Genece Brinkley’s personal beef with him as a result of the unfair sentencing. They documents they’ve acquired say Meek’s lawyer cites two separate incidents that violated his probation were ultimately dismissed charges. They even say Meek’s probation officer testified that he did well under probation. On top of that, they want his probation cleared due to the fact that he’s matured over time and he’s proven to be a responsible father, has a profession and has also shown that he’s “generally been rehabilitated.” They says he’s requested to be granted time served as well as his release.

The recently filed documents come at the heels of controversy surrounding Judge Genece Brinkley. After Meek’s attorney said that she had a personal vendetta against the rapper, he also filed to have the judge removed from the case completely. That came shortly after it was reported she was under investigation by the FBI for “possible extortionate demand.” Shortly after that, documents surfaced showing that she was allowing Meek associate with a convicted felon, which were against his probation conditions.

Earlier this week, fans and peers gathered in Philadelphia to rally for Meek Mill in freedom. Rick Ross and Dr. J as well as a large group of supporters were seen outside of the Criminal Justice Center in Meek’s hometown where they chanted “Free Meek.”